Infant mortality

Infant mortality is a measure of how many babies die during the first 12 months after birth. It is usually measured as being a number of deaths for every thousand births. The rate of infant mortality in a given place is the total number of babies dying under one year of age divided by the total number of live births during the year, then all multiplied by 1,000. For example, in 2009 the infant mortality rate in the USA was 6.8.[1] That means for every 1000 births, 6.8 babies will die before the age of one.

In 2013, the leading cause of babies dying in the United States was birth defects.[2] Other common reasons that babies die include suffocating during birth, pneumonia, getting an infection soon after birth, diarrhea, malaria, measles and not having enough nutrients.[3] It also includes problems during birth. For example the fetus may come out of the birth canal wrong, the umbilical cord may come out too soon, or labor may take too much time.[4] One of the most common reasons that babies die that can be avoided is smoking during pregnancy.[5] Drinking alcohol during pregnancy and taking illegal drugs also cause problems that may result in the baby dying.[6] Many situational things can affect how often babies die. These include: how much education the pregnant woman got, what the place is like, politics in that place, and how much healthcare is available.[7]

References

  1. ↑ "World Bank, World Development Indicators". Google public data explorer. Retrieved 5 October 2011.
  2. ↑ Mathews TJ, MacDorman MF, Menacker F (January 2002). "Infant Mortality Statistics from the 1999 Period: Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set" (PDF). National Vital Statistics Reports. 50 (4): 1–28. doi:10.1037/e558952006-001. hdl:1903/24216. PMID 11837053.
  3. ↑ "Infant Mortality & Newborn Health". Women and Children First. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
  4. ↑ "Labor and Delivery Complications -- the Basics". WebMD. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
  5. ↑ Hall ES, Venkatesh M, Greenberg JM (November 2016). "A population study of first and subsequent pregnancy smoking behaviors in Ohio". Journal of Perinatology. 36 (11): 948–953. doi:10.1038/jp.2016.119. PMID 27467563. S2CID 29303225.
  6. ↑ CDC (2020-06-03). "Commit to Healthy Choices to Help Prevent Birth Defects | CDC". Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved 2020-07-30.
  7. ↑ Genowska A, Jamiołkowski J, Szafraniec K, Stepaniak U, Szpak A, Pająk A (July 2015). "Environmental and socio-economic determinants of infant mortality in Poland: an ecological study". Environmental Health. 14 (1) 61. Bibcode:2015EnvHe..14...61G. doi:10.1186/s12940-015-0048-1. PMC 4508882. PMID 26195213.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.